From:   "Dik de Heer" 
Date:  Wed Jun 19, 2002  7:31 pm
Subject:  Born To Be With You : Jimmie Driftwood
 
JIMMIE DRIFTWOOD (By Shaun Mather)

Born James Corbett Morris, 20 June 1917, Mountain View, Arkansas
Died 12 July 1998, Fayetteville, Arkansas

As well writing two country gems, The Battle Of New Orleans and The
Tennessee Stud, Jimmie Driftwood was also an old-stager who was a noted
folk singer, teacher and folklorist. He was a prolific songwriter who composed
over 6,000 songs during his career, with over 300 of those being recorded
and/or published. He grew up in Timbo, Arkansas, 12 miles west of Mountain
View and it was whilst he worked there as a high school teacher that he began
using his songs to help teach his classes. It was in this way that he wrote
many of his compositions including the historic Battle of New Orleans. The
song became most famous courtesy of Johnny Horton whilst the much covered
Tennessee Stud was made into a classic by Eddy Arnold (Johnny Cash did a
great version on his first American Recordings CD). Other songs that made a
mark in the popular mainstream were Down In The Arkansas and He Had A Log
Chain On. He won two Grammy Awards for his music, and in the early 1960s,
was awarded an Honorary Doctorate Degree in Folklore from Peabody University
in Nashville.

He was a strong conservationist and during the 1950s and 1960s, he helped
preserve the Buffalo River in northern Arkansas from damming, and helped
have it declared a National River, to be preserved for its natural beauty.
In the 1970s, he founded the Rackensack Folklore Society in Mountain View
and was heavily involved in building the Ozark Folk Center in Mountain View.
In the early 1980s, Jimmy and his friends built the Jimmy Driftwood Barn and
Folklore Hall of Fame also in Mountain View. He passed away on July 12,
1998, at the age of 91, in a hospital in Fayetteville, Arkansas, following an
extended illness.

Recommended listening:
Americana - Bear Family (3CD).
Website: http://bigredtoybox.com/driftwood/